to belabour him, as one who has wandered away from the orthodox path and must necessarily be inaccurate.  So Froude was attacked.  So also Macaulay in his day.  But both will be read when the pedants are forgotten.  If I were asked my very ideal of how history should be written, I think I should point to those two rows on yonder shelf, the one M’Carthy’s “History of Our Own Times,” the other Lecky’s “History of England in the Eighteenth Century.”  Curious that each should have been written by an Irishman, and that though of opposite politics and living in an age when Irish affairs have caused such bitterness, both should be conspicuous not merely for all literary graces, but for that broad toleration which sees every side of a question, and handles every problem from the point of view of the philosophic observer and never of the sectarian partisan.

By the way, talking of history, have you read Parkman’s works?  He was, I think, among the very greatest of the historians, and yet one seldom hears his name.  A New England man by birth, and writing principally of the early history of the American Settlements and of French Canada, it is perhaps excusable that he should have no great vogue in England, but even among Americans I have found many who have not read him.  There are four of his volumes in green and gold down yonder, “The Jesuits in Canada,” and “Frontenac,” but there are others, all of them well worth reading, “Pioneers of France,” “Montcalm and Wolfe,” “Discovery of the Great West,” etc.  Some day I hope to have a complete set.

Taking only that one book, “The Jesuits in Canada,” it is worth a reputation in itself.  And how noble a tribute is this which a man of Puritan blood pays to that wonderful Order!  He shows how in the heyday of their enthusiasm these brave soldiers of the Cross invaded Canada as they did China and every other place where danger was to be faced, and a horrible death to be found.  I don’t care what faith a man may profess, or whether he be a Christian at all, but he cannot read these true records without feeling that the very highest that man has ever evolved in sanctity and devotion was to be found among these marvellous men.  They were indeed the pioneers of civilization, for apart from doctrines they brought among the savages the highest European culture, and in their own deportment an object-lesson of how chastely, austerely, and nobly men could live.  France has sent myriads of brave men on to her battlefields, but in all her long record of glory I do not think that she can point to any courage so steadfast and so absolutely heroic as that of the men of the Iroquois Mission.